Congress challenges Vice Prez rejection of impeachment move against CJI
New Delhi: The Congress has challenged Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu's decision to reject its impeachment move against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in the Supreme Court.
The decision is "illegal and arbitrary", said the Congress.
Two Congress Parliamentarians from Rajya Sabha- Pratap Singh Bajwa and Amee Harshadray Yajnik, approached the Supreme Court challenging the Vice President's dismissal of the impeachment motion against the Chief Justice of India.
"None of the reasons given by the Chairman (Venkaiah Naidu)... carry any weight or are legally tenable. It deserves to be set aside for being wholly extraneous and ultra vires to the provisions of the constitution and the Inquiry Act," says the Congress petition.
Both the Congress MPs claimed in their petition said that once the initiation of removal motion is signed by the requisite number of MPs, the Vice President has no option but shall constitute an Inquiry Committee to investigate the allegations against the CJI Dipak Misra.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who is also one of the signatories of the impeachment notice, mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar.
The bench, also comprising Justice S K Kaul, asked Sibal and advocate Prashant Bhushan to mention the matter before the chief justice of India for urgent listing, citing a Constitution bench judgment on powers of master of roster.
In April, a petition signed by over 60 parliamentarians called for Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra's impeachment six months before he retires, on five specific charges.
The motion "doesn't deserve to be admitted", Vice President Venkaiah Naidu said, just three day after the opposition submitted the petition.
"We cannot allow any of our pillars of governance to be weakened by any thought, word or action," said the Vice President, ascribing his quick decision to the severity of the charges directed at the Chief Justice. He also said there were unsubstantiated surmises and conjectures in the opposition's allegations.
The Constitution says the Chief Justice of India can be impeached only on grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.
The opposition backed its demand on the basis of five points, which, the Congress said, equals to misbehaviour.
These points included the assigning of sensitive cases to handpicked judges, which was raised publicly in January by four top judges who accused the Chief Justice of abusing his position as "master of the roster".
